A VANCOUVER ENGLISH-AS-A-SECOND-LANGUAGE TEACHER'S LINKS TO HIS FAVORITE ONLINE TEACHING RESOURCES, WITH ADVICE AND COMMENTARY FOR ESL TEACHERS.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Here's your diploma. Now please leave

Students need benchmarks of progress.

Tests are great for measuring a student's progress during their course. Most schools encourage regular testing and most students appreciate it.

But in my years of teaching in various settings, I've noticed that when it comes time for students to finally graduate, some schools don't think too much about the importance of an actual graduation ceremony.

Some schools simply hand out graduation certificates in the classroom, without any ceremony, and take pictures. That's about it.

My own school does have ceremonies every week, where we give nice-looking (but easy to print up) certificates to our graduates, let them say a few words of thanks and receive gifts from their proud colleagues. We also ensure to welcome the new students with a loud, bombasically enthusiastic greeting.

Yes, the ceremony is lengthy, entailing lost classroom time. And it can be pretty boring by the time we get to the twentieth speech or so.

But symbolism is important, too. When a big ceremony is undertaken, the students' sense of accomplishment is reinforced. This is also a good time for the student to take measure of how the school has helped them. A few minutes of solid reflection may translate into more students coming to the school by word of mouth from happy graduates.

Since ESL schools are businesses, they should remember that while time is money, taking the time to do things right has its own reward.